{"id":1399,"date":"2025-01-22T08:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T13:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/?post_type=cu_story&p=1399"},"modified":"2025-01-22T08:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T13:40:11","slug":"from-carleton-commerce-to-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/story\/from-carleton-commerce-to-silicon-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"From Carleton Commerce to Silicon Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n From Carleton Commerce to Silicon Valley\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Deepak Kamra (BCom\u201978) leveraged the critical thinking and technological curiosity he discovered at Carleton University to become a driving force in Silicon Valley’s venture capital scene, but his true legacy lies in using technology to create opportunities for communities worldwide.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Born in India, Kamra moved to Halifax with his family at age 10 before settling in Ottawa just in time to begin his undergraduate degree in the Bachelor of Commerce program at Carleton. He credits his time at Carleton\u2019s business school for allowing him to learn about programming and computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was very heavily leaning towards tech and I think that’s kind of what drove my interest in Silicon Valley,\u201d said Kamra.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

After graduating from Carleton, Kamra pursued a position at an accounting firm but decided instead to attend Harvard Business School for an MBA. From there, he accepted a summer position at ROLM \u2013 an early leader in digital telecommunications equipment and software \u2013 and made the move to California. After coming back to Canada to work in Toronto for a few years, Kamra moved back to California to join the ever-growing culture of start-up companies in Silicon Valley that was on the rise in the 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamra decided to transition to the world of venture capital at Canaan Partners, an American venture capital firm, in the early 90s. For the last 33 years, he has invested in and sat on the boards of over 50 startups across diverse industries \u2013 from small satellite companies to internationally recognizable brands like Match.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two decades, Kamra has also worked closely with non-profit organizations that support children in the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through this charitable work, which he got involved in alongside his mother, he uses a concept called microfinancing \u2013 offering financial services to low-income individuals excluded from traditional banking \u2013 to help people start small businesses that lift them out of poverty. He helped financial service provider Deutsche Bank raise their first commercial funds and later helped them raise $85 million to finance start-ups in the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI want people to have the same opportunity that I did, whether they’re immigrants or not,\u201d said Kamra.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Deepak was a founding board member and investment committee member at a company called Social Investment Managers and Advisors (SIMA) and is a patron and long-time supporter of Child Haven: a charity that assists children and women worldwide. He is also on the Board of Advisors of the International Rescue Committee, the largest private refugee relief organization in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, Kamra began supporting student success at Carleton by establishing The Kamra Family Scholarship in Innovation. The scholarship is awarded annually to an outstanding undergraduate student who demonstrates a commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamra explained that receiving a scholarship during his time as a Carleton student helped him pay for his own education and set him on a path to success.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s really my motivation to give back,\u201d said Kamra. \u201cTying it into innovation was just something from my background that I wanted to emphasize.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n


When asked what he\u2019s most proud of, Kamra says he is grateful that he\u2019s been able to positively impact lives across the globe through his charitable work and in his professional career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuilding homes for children and seeing how happy and well fed they are. Companies like Match.com that have developed thousands if not millions of relationships throughout the world. I guess those are the things I\u2019m most proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deepak Kamra (BCom\u201978) leveraged the critical thinking and technological curiosity he discovered at Carleton University to become a driving force in Silicon Valley’s venture capital scene, but his true legacy lies in using technology to create opportunities for communities worldwide. After graduating from Carleton, Kamra pursued a position at an accounting firm but decided instead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":1432,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[36,25],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-1399","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-alumni","cu_story_type-general"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/1399\/revisions\/1447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/advancement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}